Cross Referencing
by Silent Nacht
Summary: Harry is putting things in order, finding what he's not looking for, and occasionally having something like a life. DH spoilers. Epilogue compliant. Character study.


Details/Notes: I didn't like the epilogue, which I suppose has to be common for fic writes, as it cuts off a lot of what we have to work with. This is something I drew up as a way to connect it all in my mind, and thus it might be a bit disconnected.

* * *

_Cross Referencing:_

_In which Harry forgets several things, none of which end up being remembered, but all of which will make his children's lives infinitely more exciting. _

It doesn't take long after the war officially ends for things to fall into place.

Hermione's ideas, which would have been thought radical at any other time, fit in perfectly with the new and improved image the Ministry wants to project, and Ron rides along easily at her heels, placated by the flushed kisses she gives him every time one of her laws is forced through.

He smiles at them both, and sidesteps Hermione's pleading glances every time she brings up endorsement.

Ginny curls herself into his side, leaning down to rest her head into his shoulder, and he buries himself in her fiery red hair, and allows himself to forget everything for a little while longer.

Hogwarts pieces itself together quicker than the Ministry, but that's mainly because nothing there ever seems to change. Slytherin is still Slytherin, and eleven new students are sorted into that house the following September. Ron growls under his breath while Hermione makes tsking noises in the background.

He thinks, maybe, there is something wrong with this, but he's tired, and it's much easier to let things rest.

Ginny buys herself a ring, and he takes up one of the jobs Hermione wants him too, because it's the right thing to do, and he was getting a little bored sulking around and remembering the war anyway.

Ron and Hermione, of course, were already three steps ahead, while, of course, also being five steps behind.

He feels like he's going to laugh himself sick when Hermione fire calls him in the midst of a busy office to complain about Ron not helping at all with the wedding plans, when Ron had called him just an hour before imploring Harry to remind him when he agreed to get married of all things. He assures them both as best he can, which he fears isn't very well, and goes back work.

Something very much resembling work, anyway.

He could quit today and never work again, and he figures he would still be fairly well off.

It feels like forever, and it feels like a day, but somehow years are passing, and everything is quite normal indeed. It's a little bit too normal, in fact, but maybe he's earned a chance at that after all this time.

He is only twenty five, most people have years and years of normal before now, and when Ginny is flushed, beautiful, and grinning as she tells him she's pregnant things roll back into being just exciting enough to stand.

He names his son James Sirius, after the first two fathers he lost to the war, and Hermione rolls her eyes when she first sees him, and exclaims that the poor boy is doomed, being named after those two and being a redhead to top in off. Harry just grins, because frankly he's too nervous to do much else.

It's a very hectic time in his life, the next couple years, especially with the addition of Albus, and Ron and Hermione's first, Rose, who's sure to be a spitfire seeing as she punched him in the nose the first time he held her.

The thought of being a father is terrifying, but he's getting used to it.

He weighs the thought back and forth for nearly a month before he goes to visit his godson. Somehow in the years after the war and before Jimmy his mind was too far wandering in other places to remember, and a shooting pang of nervousness plagues him when he thinks of the promise he made when he was first named godfather.

He tells himself he was only seventeen when Remus died, and focuses on his own children, but Teddy never slides so far out of view again.

Hermione welcomes Hugo into the world with a ringing cry of, "Never again!" and Harry has to drag Ron out of the maternity ward before he does something he regrets, like getting within range of his wife, or mentioning the fact that he thought four was a nice number.

Ginny corners him later after the boys are asleep, and assures him she'll be fine with three, so long as this next one is a girl.

They both get their wish, and another redhead, in the first Potter girl in a good couple generations: Lily.

He still works, and fills up his remaining time with the kids, and occasionally Ginny, and wonders just when his life changed from something frightening and filled with adventure, to this picture of not-quiet-perfect domesticity.

He supposes it was sometime after the end of the war, or perhaps after he finally graduated from his teenage years.

Sometimes he stills has the nagging feeling that there's something he's forgotten about, that some very important detail is slipping farther and farther away, and nothing jogs it more than seeing off the first of his children on the Hogwarts' Express.

Jimmy is sure to be a terror; it was all he and Ginny could do to keep him around long enough to say goodbye before he was running off to find his good friend Teddy to make sure he ended up with a solid compartment.

He informed his puzzled father, "It's all about having contacts. I'm going to rule this place!"

It's three days before he realises the Marauders' Map is missing, and even then it's very hard for him to be at all angry about it.

He still thinks it feels like yesterday when he was at Hogwarts himself, and the bizarre feeling of deja-vu takes a long time to pass, even with his remaining children and wife to take his mind off of things. Not to mention his work, which he still thinks should be much more of a presence in his life to warrant the title.

The letter Jimmy sends him, declaring proudly that he got himself into Gryffindor, as expected, sets off the deja-vu all over again, but by then he's had no choice but to get used to it. After all, he's no long the centre of attention, merely a side figure in the lives of his children, who are just now taking centre stage in a new adventure.

Harry only hopes theirs will have a bit less of the doom and gloom his own did.

_End._

* * *

End Notes: I thank every one of you for reading this, and I ask that you please review! All of your words brighten my day a little bit more, and encourage me to keep writing. 


End file.
